


Prickly

by Rozarka



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, Awkward First Times, Community: hp_rarities, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gryffindor, Humor, Libraries, Library Sex, Plot, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, Slytherin, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-27
Updated: 2009-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:23:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozarka/pseuds/Rozarka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Auror-in-training, Seamus is curious about the vandalism that Pansy Parkinson is refusing to report to the Auror Office. An apprentice reference librarian, Pansy thinks Seamus Finnigan is taking the mickey when he claims he needs her assistance for <i>The Irish Wizarding Times</i>' crossword competition. But one favour turns out to be worth another, as a pair of smiling Irish eyes steals someone's prickly heart away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prickly

**Author's Note:**

> Written for purelush for the 2009 [hp_rarities](http://hp_rarities.livejournal.com) fic exchange. Thanks so much to Anise and Annanith for test reading and hand-holding, and to Muridae and Seedee for beta and additional hand-holding. :)

 

She'd put it off for weeks, but after last night, Pansy knew it had to be done. She'd cast disillusionment charms to hide the words from Mother, who rarely ventured outside anyway, and Dolsey would also try to keep her away should the charms fail. But it was only a stopgap measure; she needed to do something to end this once and for all.

For work that day, she donned a set of smart robes, swept her hair into a sleek chignon at her nape, and applied her makeup discreetly for maximum grown-up effect. Mr Chaffinch let her leave half an hour early when she explained, and a few minutes later, Pansy held her chin high as she pushed the doors open to the Auror office at the Ministry.

The young witch in reception listened to the bare outlines of her complaint – vandalism, slander, threats and harassment – and nodded as she jotted down the essentials. She disappeared into the corridor, and came back a minute later. "Auror Dawlish will see you, Miss Parkinson. If you'll have a seat in the waiting area, he'll come for you shortly. Please fill in this form while you wait."

Pansy accepted the printed parchment and a pen, nodded brisk thanks and opened the glass door into the main waiting area, where she sat down on one of the chairs and quickly jotted down personal information and the details of her complaint in the spaces provided. Her foot was tapping nervously by the time a stout, tough-looking Auror looked in the door and said her name.

She got up and shook hands with him at the door. If he was put off by her name, he didn't show it. He led her up a corridor, turning halfway along with a curt smile. "I have two trainee Aurors with me this month. I hope you have no problem with them being present during our interview?"

Narrowing her eyes, Pansy met his gaze. It hadn't been intended as a question, judging by his tone. "I don't think–" she started impatiently.

"Excellent," he broke her off. He stopped by a door and stuck his head in. "Potter, Weasley. Come along, we're taking interview room 4."

By the time the two trainees had entered the corridor and Auror Dawlish turned to introduce the young woman, she was gone.

Pansy walked quickly through the waiting room and into the outer corridor towards the elevators. She glared hard at the doors until they opened and let out a young, blond man in Auror robes who turned his head with an eyebrow rising as he passed her.

She trumped the raised eyebrow with a sneer as a matter of principle. The aggressively short haircut was different and it took a second before she'd placed him, but that didn't make her more warmly inclined. Seamus Finnigan. That self-righteous, hot-headed Irish oaf. He was as bad as the rest of them – worse than a lot of them – and Pansy would bet her favourite pair of shoes that neither he nor Weasley would have managed to get into Auror training if the Ministry weren't tripping over their own feet to do favours for the so-called heroes of the so-called war. Potter's self-proclaimed 'army' seemed to have infested the Auror ranks, and it meant that today, Pansy's case of vandalism, slander, threats and harassment would go unheard and uninvestigated. She wasn't about to come crawling for help with a problem they'd all get a big laugh at, to her face or behind her back, but definitely at her expense. She'd take care of it on her own, then; that, as so many things lately.

***

"You're late today, darling," Anthea Parkinson called weakly from the living-room as Pansy let herself into the cottage. Pansy did so looking straight ahead, particularly not looking to her right, where a long gravel road lined with old lime trees led straight up to Parkinson Manor.

The Manor had been sold the previous summer, the money for it handed over to the Ministry in compensation. It was a stroke of luck – so Anthea reminded her daughter daily – that the new owners were willing to let them rent the old gatekeeper's cottage at such a reasonable rate.

Pansy would have given a lot to be able to move someplace where she didn't have a panoramic view of her family's wrecked fortunes, but Mother would not hear of moving somewhere else and she'd promised Father to take care of Mother while he was 'away', and as it so happened the rent _was_ reasonable. Pansy was providing for two now, since Mother was in no fit state to work (or do much of anything besides sip port and Ogden's), and sharing a somewhat spacious cottage with her mother was a damn sight better than being forced to coexist with her in some cockroach-infested cracker-box of a flat off Diagon Alley.

"I ran into someone," she explained shortly as she entered the room where her mother lay reclining limply against embroidered pillows on the sofa.

"Someone I know, dear?"

"No, Mother." Pansy's tone didn't invite elaboration, but Mother was tone-deaf.

"You never bring any of your friends home, any more," she said sadly.

"Mother, I work late shifts. I'm tired in the evenings."

This earned her a scoff. "Oh! Young thing like you. At your age I was–"

"–caught up in a festive whirlwind of parties and admirers," Pansy mouthed along with her mother as she moved into the kitchen to see what was for dinner.

It wasn't her mother who'd made the dinner, of course. Thank God, they'd been able to keep Dolsey, their house-elf, whose energy compensated for Mrs Parkinson's lack of the same.

"You should owl Draco Malfoy," her mother called from the other room. "I haven't seen him in ages."

Pansy gave a sour laugh. "Neither have I."

"We could invite him and that charming fiancée of his – Daphne's sister. And Daphne, of course. They're both delightful girls. You and Daphne used to be close."

The obliviousness in this, which was arguably stupid to the point of cruelty, set Pansy's teeth on edge. The Greengrasses, having managed to keep their hands reasonably clean during the year Voldemort was in charge, were now extremely careful about associating with more tainted families. The Malfoys were the exception because they were, well, the Malfoys, _sine qua ultra_ and slippery enough to negotiate advantages with the re-instated Ministry. Draco, however, needed a pureblood bride without the same taint – four months on, Pansy could still hear his terse, distant voice as he explained this to her – and Astoria Greengrass evidently felt he provided adequate advantage to her in return.

"Daphne and I were never close," Pansy corrected her mother, ignoring the rest. "I was close with Millie, and she's moved abroad. With Theo."

"Dear Millicent." Pansy could hear a sympathetic smile in her mother's voice. "She's such an unfortunate looking girl, poor thing. Daphne and you look charming together."

"Oh, stuff it, Mother," Pansy said under her breath, earning huge reproving eyes from Dolsey as she poured clinking ice water into a jug.

Pansy sometimes thought that the reason she got an (exaggerated, of course) reputation for being mean was that she'd lived with her teeth clenched since before she even _got_ teeth and could only stare horrified over her magical dummy at the mild, sugary sweet creature that had granted her life. She'd spat out that dummy soon enough, and while her mother had dressed her in pastels, Pansy had started listening to her sarcastic father instead.

Of course, Father doted on Mother, which was a mystery, or rather perhaps not, since men were fools for a pretty face and a trim figure and Mother was, even now in her fifties, something of an exotic beauty.

"I'll go upstairs and wash before dinner," Pansy announced, rejoining her mother in the living-room.

"Do that, darling. It's been so sunny, it's terribly dusty outside. Not to mention in that place where you work."

Pansy turned on her mother sharply. "You went outside? Outside the house?" Her gaze searched out Dolsey, who shook her head, wide-eyed. Dolsey had been there with her and put up the disillusionment charms last Sunday. Pansy wasn't sure how long they would hold, though.

"Oh, no." Anthea Parkinson waved a hand in a regretful gesture, diffusing a cloud of sweet alcohol fumes around her. "I'm afraid I'm still far too frail." She coughed delicately, and even through Pansy's relief at the reply, the sound tinkled over her nerves like fine glass shavings as she walked upstairs.

She didn't go to the bathroom at once; instead she slipped inside Father's old office and pressed her face to the jacket that hung behind the door. It smelled of dry citrus cologne and the sweet herbal blend he liked to use for his elegant, ebony pipe. Spearmint and sage. Pansy closed her eyes for a few seconds. It was a small ritual, and a childish one, but it made her feel better and so she felt justified in her indulgence.

She soon drew back, and turned to her father's smiling photographic portrait on the wall. He winked fondly at her inside the frame, and she glared back, unimpressed. Another ritual, one that also made her feel better. "Oh, Father, after five years of this? You're going to owe me _big_ time."

 

***

The British Wizarding Library, on a small street off Diagon Alley, was quiet this time of day, right after most people's working hours. Some scholars, as well as students at various apprentice and trainee programs, were seated in the reading room; some elderly witches and wizards trickled in and out like they did all day to browse the shelves and wait their turn for the two copies of the Daily Prophet.

Seamus was sitting close to the reference shelves, towers of lexica and dictionaries heaped around the edges of his table. Eyes narrowed with a concentration that he had rarely directed towards his studies at Hogwarts, he leafed through pages and took notes. On occasion, his expression would clear up in a quick, triumphant grin, and he'd write down a word horizontally or vertically in the newspaper that lay at his side, folded to display the 'Nutcracker', the expert level crossword in the _The Irish Wizarding Times_.

Now, however, he'd worn a frown for half an hour, deepening into annoyed frustration as volume after volume refused to yield the information that he needed. Finally, with a sigh, he pushed his chair back noisily – earning a glare to rival Madam Pince's from the elderly witch currently engrossed in the Prophet, which Seamus reciprocated with a particularly saucy wink – and walked over to the help counter of the reference department.

"Excuse me," he said, addressing the petite, dark-haired witch who was standing with her back to him and stacking returned books in order on a trolley. Her long hair was in pigtails, bound low on either side of her nape, and she was wearing denims that fitted snugly over a quite lovely little arse. Instinctively, his voice lowered into a more charming register. "Could you tell me where this volume is bein' kept? I found the card but there's no such book on that shelf."

She straightened her back and turned to face him, her eyebrow rising in a quizzical arch. Seamus did a second take, eyes widening. "Parkinson."

Her mouth pursed in a disdainful smirk. "Finnigan," she said, mimicking the exact same tone of surprise. With marked lack of enthusiasm, she approached the desk. "Well, look who's gracing the halls of knowledge."

"And look who's servin' in them," he shot back, smirking as well. He did give her a good once-over then, deciding that she was just as shapely from the front. He remembered running into her on her way out of the Auror offices the previous week, and she'd looked different then. More snooty and hoity-toity, more ... herself. He'd never have expected to see Parkinson in pigtails and Muggle denims, but he had to admit that she was really working them both. Funny how Hannah Abbott still looked like a schoolgirl in her pigtails, serving up ales at the Three Broomsticks, while Parkinson looked like ... well, a minx, to be honest.

His lazy scrutiny was acknowledged with a roll of her eyes. "So, we've established that, contrary to each other's expectations, you and I are both here. What were you looking for?"

Unblushing, he handed her the note where he'd jotted down the name of the volume in question.

" _Deviant Sexual Magick In The Late 19th Century; An Overview with Period Illustrations._ " She pronounced it in a voice that carried clear as a crystal bell to every corner of the room, smiling smugly as several visitors turned to look Seamus's way. Then her voice and the expression in her brown eyes turned flat. "You're sure it wasn't on the shelf?" Without waiting for an answer, she left the desk and steered toward the stack of shelves that Seamus had already spent twenty minutes looking through from the first volume to the last.

She crouched down to peer at the place where the book was supposed to be stored.

"Told you so," Seamus said cheerfully.

With a shrug she straightened herself. "Nine times out of ten, when people can't find something, it's because they're too dim to look in the right place." Her drawl made it very clear that she found reason to suspect Seamus belonged to that category. Before he could take exception to that, she turned the card over and shook her head with a wry twist to her lips. "Oh, you daft bugger."

" _Hey_." He stared at her, wondering whether to be offended since her tone was so at odds with her words. Craning his head he saw the pencilled letters she was looking at. RL... something. Some sort of code.

"This way." She walked ahead of him along the aisle to the end, turned and started looking down the other side of the stack. Seamus didn't even try not to look at her arse, which had the sassiest sway he'd seen in a while. It looked crotchety like the rest of her, and the thought made him grin to himself. His gaze quickly scaled her upper body when she suddenly pulled a book out and handed it to him.

"That was in the wrong place entirely." Seamus was torn between gratitude and outrage.

"My boss gets creative with the classification system at times, but there's no going against it. The books go to the place he's assigned nevertheless."

"What would he do that for?" he asked, frowning. "It's bloody confusing if you're a user of the library."

"I imagine it makes him laugh."

"What was the classification of this, then?" He turned to look at the back of the book and saw the letters written there. "RLEV. What the hell?"

"Rubbish; Limited Entertainment Value." She wrinkled her nose. "He's usually spot on, you know. What do you want it for? Do I even want to know?"

"Well, seeing as you just asked, and I was holding no wand to your throat at the time–" Seamus grinned. "I need to look up a word for a crossword puzzle."

She smirked. "Of course you do. Please return the book to the desk when you're done with it. I wouldn't want it to end up in the wrong place."

Forty minutes later, he was at the desk, pushing the volume her way as she approached him. A grizzle-haired wizard was seated at another desk, writing minute notes on library cards, and Seamus saw him follow her backside with his gaze as she passed him. Her boss of the strange filing system, probably. Dirty old geezer.

"Here you are. Thanks for helping me out."

"Not at all." She opened the book at random and let her wand scan over it as she leafed through it and set a dozen pornographic drawings in motion. Despite having just looked through it with no strong reaction – the women were invariably too plump for his taste and besides, he'd been too intent on finding the name he'd been looking for – Seamus felt his dick twitch. It was the pissy way she was looking at the pages as much as the lascivious rhythm of the movements.

"Lookin' to see if you need to Evanesco it?" he said wryly.

She wrinkled her nose. The gesture seemed typical of her and reminded him how the Weasleys in particular had liked calling Pansy 'the Pug' back in school. Her nose was all right, though. Little and upturned. And right now, prissy in a kind of sexy way. "Believe me, you never know. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I did." 'Controversial illustrator, late 19th cent.', so the keyword had said, and in the footnotes to the illustrations to chapter four, Seamus had found him.

"Nice." She let the book fall closed with a bit of a bang. Without a backwards glance, she took off toward the shelf, presumably to put the book away.

Her boss followed her with his gaze, then looked up at Seamus. "Acuity," he said.

"Er ... pardon?"

"Acuity, noun, Middle English acuite, from Old French, ultimately from Latin acutus, sharp. Sharpness, keenness, a quick and penetrating intelligence." The elderly wizard got up and moved to the desk. "It's the most important quality for a reference librarian. Many highly gifted scholars would be useless in the job. The mind needs to be well-organised and have a good memory, to take in patterns and recognise them, but also to have that instinct for following pertinent associations." He nodded, looking extremely pleased with himself. "In those respects, Miss Parkinson's mind is like a steel trap. I've been setting up some tests. She's doing very well."

"Miss Parkinson's mind is not situated on her arse," Seamus suggested, following his gaze.

"Miss Parkinson's arse is irrelevant, if lovely," the wizard agreed sullenly, shuffling back to his desk and straightening his glasses.

***

The flat was half-dark when Seamus entered it, the muted sounds from Dean's TV set barely covering the sounds of low laughter, whispers and moans. Seamus tugged off a sock and bunched it up in a ball, hurling it in the direction of the sound. "Get a room," he called out.

Two heads appeared above the backrest of the sofa. Predictably it was Dean who was ever so slightly flushed under his dark skin; Katie was grinning at him unrepentantly and socking the sock back at its owner.

"Hey, we _are_ getting a room. A flat, even. This week is your last chance to catch a peep show and spruce up your sad excuse for a sex life, Finnigan."

"You call that a peep show? Ye haven't even got your shirt off, Katiebell," he fired back, grinning as he flung himself down in an armchair and tossed the crossword on the table. She didn't like it when he called her Katiebell. But he avoided physical attacks as long as he didn't call her Tinker-bell. All three of them were well enough versed in Muggle culture to recognise the reference.

"Still working on that?" Dean asked, leaning forward to check his progress on the crossword. He made a regretful grimace upon seeing all the empty squares still remaining. "Sorry I've been no help, but no one knows that stuff. Well, except Hermione, so maybe you're screwed. Reckon you're going to get it done by Saturday?"

"Absolutely," Seamus said stubbornly, feigning more confidence than he felt. "I have enlisted a secret weapon."

"Pray tell." Katie had sat up and was attempting to straighten her tousled hair. Seamus sighed. They were like bunnies. Cute bunnies, and bunnies he was fond of, but still... In the six months since Katie had kissed Dean under the mistletoe during a party the previous Christmas, they'd been going at it so frequently that Seamus couldn't help but wonder how Dean's bits hadn't fallen off.

There was, of course, no envy in that observation at all. 

"Pansy Parkinson." He nodded significantly as they both stared at him without understanding. "Yes, the one. She's working as a librarian – trainee, probably – at the Wizarding Library's reference department. She helped me find what I needed today."

"That's right," Dean mused. "Parvati said something about her working there. That she'd a hard time finding a job last summer, but this old wizard at the library took pity on her and took her in."

"It wasn't pity," Seamus said, with the air of someone knowing something that the others in the room did not. "It was acuity."

"What?"

"Acuity, noun. From Middle English ac... er. Never mind." He shrugged. "Apparently her mind is like a steel trap. It may be my salvation now that Hermione's gone."

Katie reached over and patted his head. "You're not feeling unwell, are you? Pitching your salvation on the Pansy Parkinson brainpower, I don't know..." She shook her head doubtfully, then tested the springiness of his hair. "Aren't you growing your hair out soon, Butch? We all miss those luscious locks."

Seamus shrugged, but felt a moment's annoyance with pat assumptions. Even though he knew perfectly well that he was as good at making them himself. They could say what they liked, Parkinson had known exactly what she was doing today. He could empathise, because no one had expected him to apply for Auror traineeship last summer, either. In fact, everyone had expected him to open a bar. Or to get work in one, drawing pints. It was getting sick of the half-joking assumptions that had made him think hard about McGonagall's question of what he _really_ wanted to do. He'd had to get private tutoring in Potions and had only passed his exam last week, but it had been worth it.

And all right, so maybe cutting his hair in an aggressive buzzcut had been a bit over the top, but he'd wanted to do something else than everyone expected. To be contrary.

His expression must have told a tale, because Katie ruffled his hair affectionately, making a face. "Sorry, boy-o. You know I meant nothing wrong."

Fondness took over from irritation. Katie was a good girlfriend to Dean, a good friend to Seamus, and Seamus could be a sulky prat, he knew this. "Of course I know." He grinned at her. "Tinker-bell. Hey, aren't you taking that shirt off first?" he asked, ducking and chuckling as she leapt.

 

***

Finnigan seemed to have become somewhat of a fixture in the library. Every day this week, he'd come in at around five o'clock, and stayed put for two or three hours. At first, Pansy did her best to ignore him, but as his rounds to the help desk became more and more frequent and entailed finding a whole rainbow spectrum of information, her curiosity was – grudgingly – piqued. While at the beginning, she'd let Mr Chaffinch handle Finnigan's requests if he was free, gradually she found herself, much to her annoyance, pushing forward to find out what it was he needed next.

The first time she made an errand to come up behind him and saw the crossword puzzle lying open behind the stacks of books, she was surprised enough to let out a small 'huh'. She'd thought his explanation the first day had been a joke. Seamus Finnigan and crosswords; it simply didn't fit. Not because he was stupid – although she certainly didn't rule out that possibility – but because he seemed restless and physical and impatient and all sorts of things that she imagined would turn the focusing on a piece of paper for hours into sheer torture.

He glanced up over his shoulder with a slow grin. "'lo, Parkinson."

"Hmm," she said. She leaned against the stack of shelves next to his table, arms folded over her chest. "What are you doing crosswords for?" she asked in her quiet library voice, but with an accusatory note to the question. She didn't like being mistaken.

"Exercisin' my intellect," he said in the same hushed voice, his arms clasping behind his head as he let his chair tip back, and stretched luxuriantly with a bit of a groan. His tee-shirt slipped up and showed a narrow strip of his stomach, flat and winter pale with dark blond hairs down the middle. "Keeps the small grey ones agile, like."

"Sure," she said sceptically, her gaze darting away from that pale glimpse of skin. "Try again. And don't tip the chair, you're going to make a racket."

He hesitated for a moment, then tipped carefully back down, turned the page over and let her see the second page of the puzzle with the small coupon in the corner that stated the first prize. His finger tapped at it, and his voice held ridiculous significance. "A pot of gold."

"Right." Pansy leaned over to see, and then turned to stare at him in frank disbelief. "And have you ever heard of chasing rainbows and of the folly inherent therein?"

"That pot of gold ain't budgin'," Finnigan stated. "The champion of all the five rounds will win it fair and square."

"I knew you were Irish," Pansy said snidely; "why not also a leprechaun?" She shook her head. "There'll be hundreds entering that contest."

Finnigan let out a sigh and scrubbed a hand down his face, scowling slightly at the leprechaun jab. "I've got me reasons. What's your problem anyway, Parkinson?"

"Nothing," she said after a few moments' pause. She truly didn't know why she was feeling any interest, let alone picking an argument over this. "I have no problem at all."

"No problem, huh?" He turned in his chair to face her, stretching a long leg out. "Is that why you were visiting the Auror headquarters last week, then?"

The comment, entirely out of the blue, blind-sided her. His gaze was steady on her face as he took in her reaction, and the idea that he was drawing conclusions, stupid, faulty conclusions from what he observed, made her cheeks feel hot as temper and embarrassment boiled up in her. "No," she snapped, "that's not why I was there at all."

Finnigan looked her over a second time, and now his expression had gone thoughtful, which was worse. His eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. "Ye didn't look too happy – course, at the time I thought that was just you being ... well, snooty as usual, I suppose."

Pansy was bristling with annoyance and frustration that he'd seen even that much. "I can't recall inviting any discussion about my private affairs," she said, the words practically crackling icicles as they passed her lips. "And clearly it's you who've got a problem, counting on a bloody crossword to pay off in a fortune while insulting a person you're relying on to help you."

***

The next day, he was hovering at the help desk when she got back from her afternoon tea break.

Her lips pressed tight together as she looked around for Mr Chaffinch, who was, typically enough, nowhere to be seen.

"I apologise," Finnigan said before she could draw breath to speak. His voice, deep and charming, rang with earnestness. "I shouldn't have said what I did yesterday – it wasn't my place. And I need help, Parkinson. I need it bloody fast. The deadline for sending in the third puzzle is coming up at the end of the week." He pushed a piece of parchment at her.

Pansy rolled her eyes, not so much mollified as exasperated with herself for giving in. But it was her job, wasn't it? That, she told herself, was the only reason she reached for the note. "Believe me, I know you need help. Let me look at that."

"I've been through all the Quidditch annals of the year," Finnigan said, as she picked up the note. "Couldn't find anything."

The keyword was straightforward enough. "'A disputed Quidditch supporter brawl occurred here after a match in 1746.' Nine letters, third 'v', sixth 'm'." Pansy tapped her fingers on her lips, thinking. "You'll need to look in our newspaper archive. But it's in the storage magazines up in the attic. I ... suppose I can let you in there, if you promise to at least _try_ to behave yourself."

"When don't I ever?" he replied, grinning at her.

Pansy, remembering some incidents from their last year at Hogwarts, smirked tightly, given the memory was really more terrible than funny. "Even I can't help you answer that in full. Go grab your things, I'll tell my boss to keep an eye on the desk while I show you up there."

She took Finnigan up steep, hairpin-winding back stairs to the dusty, high-ceilinged attic room where shelf after shelf was stacked with old magazines, newspapers and ancient volumes, all carefully preserved with charms. After showing him where the Quidditch literature was shelved, she left him at it, telling him she'd be back when the library was closing up in two hours, if he hadn't returned by then.

It was a Thursday and Mr Chaffinch finished work at seven, leaving her to man the reference room and to close up an hour later. After having sounded the closing bells firmly a couple of times and terrorised the few remaining visitors out, Pansy locked up the main library rooms and took the back stairs up to the attic. He was still sitting there, hunched over one of the long narrow tables with several volumes open around him, but when he heard her come in, he looked up and stretched his spine with a groan.

"We've closed up," Pansy said. "Have any luck?"

"The luck of the Irish is exaggerated," Finnigan grumbled. "But, I'm gettin' there, I think. I'm guessing it's a home incident since no other information was given, and _The Irish Quaffle_ kept a good commentary on all major league matches throughout the year. I'm through October – it's got to turn up soon if it's here at all. Think ye'll let me up here tomorrow, as well?"

Pansy shrugged. "Why not?" Hesitating, she sat at the edge of the table. "You've only got November and December left to go through? Think it'll take you long?"

"Twenty minutes?" His gaze rested on her midriff or a bit lower for a moment, and Pansy, to her horror, felt a completely unexpected blush creep into her face.

"All right, you can have half an hour. I'm in no hurry to get home." That was no exaggeration, she thought sardonically, and pushed herself off the table, crossing behind Finnigan to the tall attic window and cranking it open. It was peaceful up here, high above most of the other roofs in wizarding London, with nothing but chimneys and magpies and pigeons and the occasional owl for company. She could see the larger Muggle city around too, in a blue haze of twilight and automobile smoke and garish neon signs. Above the haze, the pinprick lights of a few major stars managed to penetrate to the world below.

She hoisted herself up on the window ledge and perched there, swinging her legs up and leaning against the frame. Her hand went to the elegant ebony pipe lying in wait there, and she held it in one hand, filling it from her pouch of spearmint and sage blend with the other. Wand drawn, the herbs and grasses lit to a smoulder and she put the lip of the pipe to her lips and took a slow, careful breath. She didn't inhale the smoke the way her father had used to – despite repeated tries it still gave her the most humiliating coughing fits, and nausea in their wake. But she let the taste and scent fill her mouth for a few seconds and then breathed it out through her lips in a thin trail of fume. 

When her gaze wandered to Finnigan again after a minute, his broad shoulders and blond head were still bent over the bound volume of magazines. An emotion rose in her and she quelled it quickly when she recognised it as disappointment. Perhaps she'd put on a bit of a show then, and had wanted a reaction. No matter that this was what she did when she was up here, on her own. Tasting the past, scenting safety, her one concession to nostalgia. And it made her angry with herself that she'd given in to the temptation to use that as a cheap ploy to catch the attention of a handsome, oblivious Gryffindor prat.

After another few minutes, during which she did her careful smoking in silence, letting the scent of a less confusing past wrap around her and trail out harmlessly into the night, the peace was interrupted by a whoop of delight as Finnigan pushed his chair back and literally leapt into the air. "The Rivermaid! God damn it, yes! An inn near the pitch of the Kanturk Kites, which by the way were disbanded in the early 1800's, so how the hell would anyone know? That crossword writer is a bloody _sadist_." Beaming, he turned to face her. 

His eyes widened.

Pansy smiled and lowered the pipe to her knees. "Handsome work, trainee Auror."

"Blood, sweat and tears." Finnigan eyed her for a moment and then approached in a slow saunter. "Room for one more, up there, then?"

"Might be. If I _make_ room." She held his gaze and then swung her legs down from the ledge and sat to the side. "Be my guest."

"What's that? Didn't know you were a smoker."

She shrugged. "Not like we would have been allowed at Hogwarts. I never wanted it then, anyway. This is different."

He lifted himself up on strong arms, his knee brushing hers. "How so, different?"

She let her gaze drift away over the rooftops. "It's a memory, that's all."

"It's nice up here, isn't it?" Finnigan leaned his head against the frame and his gaze followed hers, sweeping over the rooftops and the sky. "That memory of yours smells good."

She smiled, surprised to find that it was more sweet than bitter. "I think so, too."

Again, his gaze alighted on her, and he held out his hand, palm up. "Would you mind?"

Pansy hesitated. It felt to her like a very forward request, but she could see how it might not look so, from his point of view.

"Ah, you ... Sorry, it's all right." He started lowering his hand, and she decided quickly, placing the pipe carefully in his still open palm.

"No, go on. You can try it."

Smiling, he curled his fingers around the pipe and held it to his lips. "This won't make me so dizzy that I fall off the ledge to my death, will it?"

"If so, you're on your own, Finnigan." She paused, placing her face in stern, warning folds. "Just don't inhale if you haven't tried it before."

He grinned at her, closed his lips around the lip of the pipe and drew in a deep, demonstrative breath, which was promptly interrupted by a dramatic coughing fit. He clung to the window frame with one arm, swaying precariously forward into loose air, and Pansy held on to the frame on her side as well, laughing as hard as he was coughing.

"You Gryffindors, so fucking predictable." She wiped away tears. So did he. They blinked and grinned at each other.

"Never heard ye laughin' like that," he said after regaining his breath.

"Yeah, well. That you didn't hear it, doesn't mean I never did it," she informed him defensively.

"Hey, I didn't say that, now, did I?" He handed her the pipe back. "That should last me the night, I reckon."

She took the pipe and put it aside. The scent was around her now and it gave her the illusion of being protected, more relaxed than she'd normally be, sitting beside someone from his house in any context at all. "So, are you going to tell me about the crossword? How on earth did you choose such a hare-brained get-rich-quick scheme?"

He drew up a leg and raised it over the ledge so he sat astride it, leaning back against the frame. The soft breeze drew out his short hair in spikes. "It isn't like that. It's like ... your pipe. Personal, like." He smiled to himself, looking so relaxed sitting there with denim-clad thighs dangling one inside the room, one outside into loose air, that Pansy's stomach flipped slightly.

It looked a bit reckless. More than a bit careless. Very Gryffindor, really, and she certainly didn't approve. "Well," she pointed out, "I did tell you about the pipe."

"You didn't, actually. But maybe you were plannin' to, later." His grin was easy, including her now. "It's no big secret. Me Mam, she gets the Times and always does the Saturday crosswords. The regular one is okay, but the Nutcracker, she usually only can get a few words in, because you can't do it without a crap-load of books to reference. So she started doin' this crossword, the first week the competition ran. Said if she won that pot of gold, she'd shine up the house right and proper and then her and Da could go on one of those cruises around the world. They've done all right, but never had that extra for extravagance, see? Well, it ended with her putting down a couple of words on that crossword and it wouldn't budge no further. So I took it with me and somehow managed the first one. And the second, pickin' Hermione's brains. They're makin' them a little harder by the week, though, and Hermione's gone on a two-months' exchange program to bloody Canada. Don't know if I'd manage this week's without the expert assistance of yourself."

Pansy smiled, liking his story despite herself – liking mostly the casual way he told it, without drawing attention to himself as a goody-two-shoes. And she _really_ liked that she was holding her own against bloody Granger. "Flattery will get you anywhere, Finnigan."

"That right?" He affected a leer, and she kicked his shin hard, with little concern for his safety. "Ow! Can't fault a man for tryin'." Gripping his shin, he chuckled and shook his head at her.

So this was what it looked like when Irish eyes were smiling. Finnigan's eyes weren't blue as she'd vaguely imagined. They were green with all shades of moss and sea-grey and flecks of bronze in them. Perhaps even a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Pansy dropped her own gaze, berating herself for thoughts that were nothing but nonsense.

"You can tell me about the pipe some other time." His voice had changed, gone low and more tentative. "What I'd really like you to tell me is what you wanted to see an Auror for last Saturday. And why you walked away."

So much for getting lost in a pair of pretty eyes. Next moment you got a bucket of ice water dropped over your head. Pansy was stiff when she met his gaze again. "So Potter and the Weasel tattled. Why am I not surprised. I'm sure you all got a good laugh."

"What the... _no_. No, it wasn't like that. I asked around today," he admitted. "The receptionist witch said you'd been going to see Dawlish, and Dawlish told me about you disappearing and that Harry and Ron had been assigned with him that week. That was a complete tale, right there."

Angry and more upset than she felt she could defend to herself, Pansy made to jump down to the floor, but a hand closing around her wrist stayed her. His grip was firm and gentle and for some reason that made her throat feel tight. Which made her even angrier. "What the hell do you want, Finnigan?"

"I want to help." She laughed, brittle with disbelief, and he sighed. "Dawlish showed me the complaint form you'd filled in. Even without knowing all the details, I reckon it's not something you ought to have to deal with on your own."

"I'm not going back there; there's no damn point. You're trying to tell me it was a coincidence that Potter and the ... Weasley were there that day?"

"What else would it be? Staking out the office to jump on cases where they might get some cheap revenge on former enemies? They've been with Dawlish all month, besides. Pansy, I can tell you as a trainee Auror that we don't get to choose our cases and we don't get the time to play games. And whether ye'll believe it or not, neither Harry nor Ron would have been unprofessional in that case."

She snorted. "Oh, please. You have _no_ fucking idea what you're talking about." His hand was still gripping her wrist and her hands were still gripping the window ledge. Finnigan had called her by her first name and that confused her as much as anything else of it.

"All right. I guess I can see where ye're coming from. I'll help you. You won't have to take it through the Auror office if you're opposed."

"I don't need your help," she insisted, anger tight in her voice again. She yanked her hand back and jumped down to the floor, raising her wand to re-shelve the volumes on the table. "For all I know, you've talked with Potter and the Weasel about this and you fine, noble Gryffindor boys are all setting me up for some nitwit prank." It hit her the moment the words were out of her mouth. That was what it was. That was why Finnigan had suddenly appeared at her library this week and why he was acting all helpful and charming. She turned towards him, mouth open to tell him to get the hell out, and found herself chest to chest with him. Well, chest to ribs more precisely. She craned her neck back, fist clenching around her wand.

His hand was around hers at once, pushing her hand down to her side. "Don't be so sodding stupid." He was actually laughing at her but he sounded more annoyed than amused. "You think I'd put my future career at stake to play a prank on you? You're as self-absorbed as ever, Parkinson." He met her glare with one to match it, and then some. "I'm not a petty little _boy_ , and I'm offerin' my help because ... one favour is worth another, I reckon. And because it actually is the decent thing to do."

"Which you of course assume I'd know nothing about." She dropped her gaze, feeling exhausted and bitter and too damn ancient for nineteen. His jibe that she was self-absorbed had _stung_. Because, yeah, she'd been self-absorbed as hell, but she'd been stripped of that luxury a good while ago and missed it quite a fucking lot, thank you, and his sort would never be willing to believe that she could change, even if it were by force of necessity rather than her own free will. Nor would they ever be ready to admit that her sort wasn't the only side that needed to change.

Maybe it didn't matter then, when everything was pretty much doomed to stay the same anyway. And he was right that it would be moronic of him to risk his career on a stunt that could only offer a few minutes of petty gratification, so perhaps he was to be trusted on that point at least.

Salazar knew, she could use some help.

"Three times now," she said tonelessly, talking to his shirt, which was open a few buttons, showing a sparse sprinkling of silky blond hairs on his chest. Not that she noticed. Or, at least, cared. Or wanted to touch them, in the least. "Some idiot came at night and painted words on the house. Slurs and ... I don't know. I don't think they're threats, just someone wanting me to feel awful, I suppose. It honestly only makes me spitting angry, but I don't want my mother to see it. She'd be mortified and make a frightful fuss and ... I'll go spare if I have to deal with her reactions on top of the rest."

Two fingers were raising her chin, which felt wobbly, so she clenched her jaw tight and opened her eyes, locking her gaze with his. "It's going to be all right, Pansy." Again with the warm gaze and the kind voice and she wanted to stamp her foot or hit something.

"Don't patronise me," she hissed. Her mind raced over her Slytherin friends to find a less humiliating alternative, but Draco was impossible to ask; Daphne likewise, and for the same reason. Millie and Theo were out of the question because they were out of the country, Blaise had never liked her much – had never liked anyone but himself much – and she didn't trust Greg not to make things horrifically worse rather than better if he offered to help out. And Vince was, of course, dead. Lovely.

"Didn't mean it that way." He took his hand away, though, and a step back. "You make it hard on a bloke to be nice to you," he observed with a sardonic shrug.

"I don't give a fig about _nice_ ," she spat out. "It's the most insincere and insipid word in the English language."

"How about kindness, then?"

"Spare me the glimpses of your soft underbelly, please," she ground out. Kindness sounded too close to pity and it was making her stomach turn. She'd been stacking the last few books without even noticing, working by rote. "Come on, we're leaving."

He sighed, but nodded, and stuffed his pen and the newspaper with the crossword into the inner pocket of his robe, following her down the steep stairs. His presence at her back made her skin prickle at her nape, raising fine hairs there. Or maybe it was just the draft in the deep stairwell.

"What's the pattern?" he asked to her back. "How long between the three incidents so far?"

"It started a month ago, and it happened two weekends consecutive to each other, first a Friday night, then a Saturday. Then a week when nothing happened, and then Friday night again the week after that."

"Did you ever hear anything? Try to keep watch?"

"Only the weekend they didn't turn up. I don't know if they noticed I was up. But the first time I didn't think it would happen again, so the second time took me off guard, too. Then the third weekend nothing happened, although I sat up all night, so I hoped it was over. But last Saturday I got out in the morning and they'd been there again." They'd reached the landing with the door into the reference room, but she'd turned out the lights and closed everything up, so she passed by that door and led him down the corridor and out the back entrance of the library instead.

He looked down at her in the sparsely lit alley. "Friday's tomorrow. I'll come around eleven and keep an eye on things through the night. If nothing happens, then I'll be there on Saturday, too. Where do you live?"

"North of Amersham. Parkinson Manor, the gatekeeper's cottage." Her eyes defied him to pass comment, but despite studying her for a moment, he decided – incredibly – to keep that big Irish trap shut. He only nodded.

"I'll be there."

Pansy shook her head, still so puzzled as to his motives that it was hard to keep the suspicion out of her voice. "Both Friday and Saturday night? When are you going to sleep?"

"In the day, obviously? Anyway, it might only be the Friday, if I get them then." He grinned. "Concerned about my welfare, Parkinson? I'm touched."

"Oh, do shove it," she said, but there was no real heat behind it. To tell the truth, she was relieved that he was going to make it stop. To be even more honest, that grin wasn't the least charming thing she'd ever seen. Vexed and bewildered, she gripped her wand and Apparated home.

***

The gatekeeper's cottage at Parkinson Manor looked idyllic like a postcard in the June night, with light streaming out from three windows on the ground floor and from an attic room that was raised a half-level from the top floor. Seamus was there at half past ten, walking around and checking the wards while he looked for a good place to keep watch.

The wards weren't bad, and he wondered if it was Pansy who'd cast them. There were chinks and weak points, though, as he'd expected, since keeping an entire property constantly warded was a complex and time-consuming thing. If Pansy and her mother were on their own now, and her Mam wasn't of the most practical sort, well, then Pansy probably had her hands full.

He raised his wand, scanned for disillusionment charms, and detected one that he managed to dismantle after a couple of minutes' experimentation. Letters appeared on the seemingly pristine brick wall; large, red and ugly, dripping paint like fresh blood.

"Right," Seamus muttered, grimacing in disgust. "That's classy." The words were predictably nasty, _traitor_ and _Death Eater slag_ and similarly inspired crap, but the ones that caught his attention were of a slightly different bent. _She's here. Parkinson's here. Someone grab her._

What the hell was that? It sure looked like a threat, but it reminded him of something, and Seamus searched his memory. At that moment, though, the front door pushed soundlessly open, and Pansy slipped out, wearing a dark jumper and skirt. Seamus saw that the attic room had gone dark. Pansy spied about and he gave a wave, and she walked quietly down the garden path, then opened the gate to join him.

"You came," she stated, disbelief evident in her tone.

"Said I would, didn't I?" He smiled, but then nodded to the letters. "What's that? I mean, the general stupid crap speaks for itself, but that looks like a threat."

She bit her lip, following his gaze, her shoulders hunching as she pushed her hands into the pockets of her skirt. "Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's ... oh come on, don't pretend like you don't remember!"

Her tone was exasperated, with a harshness that hinted more at awkwardness than anger, and when he just raised his eyebrows, she sighed. "But Potter's here! He's here, someone grab him!" she quoted with nearly comical flatness, and Seamus looked at the words again ... and finally made the connection. The eve of the Battle of Hogwarts, and– "Oh."

"Oh," she said, her mouth twisting into an unbeautiful smile. But something about the smile made Seamus want to ... actually hug Pansy, or put an arm around her shoulders, or something similar that would probably earn him a smack across the kisser. So he shoved his hands into his pockets, as well.

"I reckon you pissed some people off with those words that night."

She snorted. "I'm willing to bet you were one of those people." 

"Maybe so, then."

"So now you can run home and we can pretend you never made that offer and I'll deal with my own problems the way I always intended," she said without catching her breath, and glared at him, a challenge and not much faith in her dark eyes.

"What?" Irritated, Seamus slipped his hand around hers and dragged her out of general view, among a copse of small trees that lined the road to the manor proper. It was getting on towards eleven and who knew when the vandals would turn up, if they did intend to strike that night. "You're right talented at jumpin' to conclusions, aren't ye? Listen, I don't know why you said that and I damn well think it would have been better unsaid, but you can't unsay words. It's in the past and I don't pretend to know what rubbish went through your mind at that moment, but two wrongs don't ever make a right. So I'm stayin'. You, however, had better go indoors."

"Make me," she said, still glaring.

Seamus watched her, small and haughty and oozing bad temper, and reluctantly, he shook his head. "Promise you'll take instructions if you stay."

"Provided they aren't terminally stupid, certainly."

"Oh, sweet Mother of God." He rolled his eyes. "Just don't act without consultin' with me first, will ye?"

She reluctantly nodded, and Seamus crouched down, leaning his back against a tree trunk. "What direction are they more likely to have come from?" he asked, looking up at her. "How are the wards on the main property?"

"I imagine they're crumbling all over the place," she said with a shrug that struck him as a little too nonchalant. "The new owners haven't moved in yet; they're renovating, the gates go open and shut all day to let in the workers, and there has been no-one here to fortify the wards along the walls for months as far as I've seen."

He nodded. "Well, let's stay put here then. It's a good vantage point." He took his wand and cast a silencing charm around them, then a cushioning charm on the ground next to him. "Sit down. It may take a while."

Pansy hesitated, presumably because he'd issued it like an order, so Seamus added, grinning at her, "Please?" and although she did roll her eyes, her mouth quirked up minutely as she stepped closer and sat down, her legs tucked under her.

Minutes passed. The lights went out in the house. "That's Mother going to bed," Pansy whispered, and Seamus nodded, pleased. Much better chance of something happening when the lights were all out.

After another ten minutes or so, she moved closer, leaning against the same tree trunk, so that their arms brushed together, and he turned his head to glance down at her. She was staring into the dark, gaze distant.

"My father was there, outside the castle with the Dark Lord's army," she said suddenly. "It's not an excuse and I'm not interested in making excuses. I never could stomach that self-righteous boy wonder and I still think he led the Dark Lord to the castle and put hundreds of people's lives in danger. And still ... the Dark Lord..." She took an angry-sounding breath. "Voldemort. He wasn't the saviour of the pureblood world; he was a lunatic. If I hadn't realised before, I knew well enough after what Draco had told me the previous summer, not to mention after the Carrows. And Potter did manage to defeat him, so ... I was wrong. About that one thing. And I'm never saying this again, and you can't ever quote me on it, and if you do, I _will_ hunt you down and eat your firstborn with Worcester sauce and pickles."

Seamus listened, eyebrows raised in surprise. His silence hung over them for a minute after she was finished, and then he nodded. "Understood."

"I don't give a Hippogriff's arse if you understand," she said, but now she sounded only grouchy, and Seamus found himself grinning, and slipped an arm behind her neck and around her shoulders, tugging her closer.

"Aye, sure enough. Your lack of caring about anything I think about anything ye do has been noted."

She made a sound in the 'Humph' range, and Seamus chuckled under his breath, as he kept watch over the house. He'd been taken aback by her declaration, but it sounded like something she'd needed to say out loud, if only once in her life, and he reckoned that made it honest, then. Still miles apart from his own experience of that night, but he'd never have thought he'd hear Pansy Parkinson own up, on her own accord, to having been wrong about anything that happened at Hogwarts.

Suddenly, he saw one blink of light on top of the gate walls and froze. He turned her face to him and placed a finger across his lips, then craned his head around the trunk of the tree and watched the house.

Three persons came out of the woods behind the cottage, walking quietly, wands ready as they approached the house. Seamus gripped his own wand tighter and got up out of his crouch, signalled sternly to Pansy to stay where she was, and slipped out of the copse of trees and swiftly across a few yards of lawn into the fringe of the woods.

He approached carefully, watching them raise their wands and start spouting red paint out of them, spelling out more abuse on the walls of the cottage. Raising his wand, he signalled once with a light back to Padma Patil who was lying in wait on top of the perimeter walls, and as she soundlessly rolled to jump onto the lawn, they moved in simultaneously.

It was child's play, really, the three vandals preoccupied and unprepared and with no more than basic experience in wand fights. He and Padma had them rounded up in a minute, and as Padma was wearing her Auror trainee robes, the seriousness of the situation seemed to settle fairly quickly over the three.

Seamus recognised their faces from Hogwarts – they were students below his year, right out of school. One he knew pretty well, from the Gryffindor common room in previous years. "Jack Sloper." A short laugh of disbelief escaped him. "Fuckin' stupid, Jack. Still a big kid, are ye?"

"Not as stupid as that bitch," the youth said sullenly, and Seamus turned to see Pansy come across the lawn, brushing greenery off her behind. His jaw clenched.

"It's up to this lady whether she wants to press charges, so I recommend you watch your big mouth," he warned Jack.

Pansy didn't look too happy, seeing Padma, and the glance she threw Seamus threatened that harsh words would be had later. Padma, on the other hand, eyed Pansy coolly yet without any overt hostility, ever the professional. "Seamus said you didn't want the office involved, but this isn't the only case of harassment and vigilante action we've seen in the last months, and I think we need to check if it's related to any of those unsolved cases. I recommend you let us file a report, Pansy."

Pansy gave a put-upon sigh and averted her gaze, but Padma pressed on. "There's no reason they should get away with this. They're a disgrace for the winning side. I'd personally love to see them charged with a heavy fine and damages, at the very least. That spelled paint is going to take you ages to strip off without professional help. Wouldn't you rather want _them_ to foot the bill?"

"Oh, all right," Pansy said reluctantly, expelling a tensely held breath. She searched Seamus's gaze and he nodded to her in encouragement, glad she'd agreed. He'd noted the familiarity with which Padma talked with Pansy and realised they seemed to know each other better than the Hogwarts years would explain. Probably went far back. He did know that the Patils were moving in fine pureblood circles, and that the parents hadn't been thrilled with their daughters' rebellious actions the last few years.

The three young men weren't looking all that cocky any longer, the realisation that pay-back had caught up with them evident in sour hangdog expressions, but Sloper still sneered at Pansy. "Doesn't matter what they do with us, no one's ever going to forget what you said that night," he declared.

Pansy sighed, marched up to him and kicked his shin hard. "Break my heart," she muttered over his shrill yelp.

"The bitch attacked me!" he moaned, bent double and clutching his shin.

"Must've got something in me eye," Seamus muttered, studying the sky.

"Moan to the judge; he'll bleed for you, I'm sure," Padma said tersely to Sloper, putting him and the two others in a full body-bind. She glanced at Seamus. "Auror office? Pansy, we can get a statement from you tomorrow or on Monday, if you'll stop by then."

Seamus hesitated, though, holding a finger up to Padma. "One minute."

He took Pansy by the arm and led her away a few steps. Sheepishly, he opened his jacket and let her have a glimpse of the folded newspaper in the inner pocket. "Er ... see, the problem is ... the deadline on last week's crossword is tomorrow night and I'm kind of running out of time. Ye wouldn't have time, later...?"

"How long will you take, with that rabble?"

Seamus shrugged. "Depends on whether the Aurors on night watch are busy ... half an hour? I'll bribe Padma to finish it up, if necessary."

"Yeah, about _her_ –" Pansy seemed to attempt a scowl, but gave it up halfway, shrugged and bit her lip on an awkwardly wide smile instead, huge relief evident in her expression. "Oh, never mind. Meet me outside the library at ... half past midnight."

***

The process of turning in the captives and writing up the report was done in a little over half an hour, and Seamus Apparated straight in front of the library as soon as he was finished, looking around for Pansy. She wasn't there, so he walked into the back alley and found her sitting on the stairs of the side entrance she'd let him out of the previous night.

"All done," he said, reaching out his hand to her and tugging her up on her feet. She followed easily, smiling at him, and he returned the smile, puzzled. "Aren't ye going to have my hide for bringing Padma with me?"

"I should," she said, unlocking the door and lowering the wards. "I realise you could have found yourself outnumbered, but you might have told me."

"Reckoned if I did, you'd blow off the whole thing. Given you didn't want Ron or Harry involved, it was Padma or Ernie Macmillan. Ernie's all right, but he would've lectured ye, so I asked Padma."

"Thank heaven for small mercies." She pressed her lips together, eyeing him over her shoulder as she started up the stairs. "What do you need to look up for the crossword?"

He told her, and she led him up to the top of the stairs again, letting them both into the dusty, high-ceilinged attic room, and pulled out leather-bound volumes of old magazines. " _Magical Beings and Creatures_ , the first years of publication," she told him.

This time, they worked in tandem, both browsing through volumes on the search for a woman pioneer in European Magical Creatures welfare, hyphenated, seven plus seven letters.

It took an hour's combing of the annals, and then Pansy pushed her book over at him and pointed out the name. "Matilda Ros-Hilda Brecker-Haussen."

"Sexy," Seamus said, grinning from ear to ear as he pulled out a pencil and wrote down the name into the crossword. "Ye can just tell she was a naughty little firecracker, that one."

Smirking, Pansy got up and started putting the bound volumes away, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. "That what you like, is it?"

"Hell yeah. The double-barrelled name is an added turn-on, but really just a bonus." Seamus tipped back and stretched in the chair with a long groan, feeling the weight of a good many hours awake – and toppled over, crashing backwards to the floor.

After a couple of stunned seconds, in which he carefully ascertained that he was a) conscious and b) whole, he dragged himself to his feet with a litany of grumbled curses, and found Pansy sitting on the edge of the table, looking at him and giggling.

It wasn't like any other girly giggle that Seamus had ever heard. It was a bit husky just like her voice, a bit reckless, and as he straightened himself and brushed off his back, he glanced down and saw her peeking at him with the strangest assessing look in her brown eyes.

Seamus drew a careful breath and took an inadvertent step back, studying her as well. She was sitting there perched on the edge of the table, leaning slightly forward on her hands that were hugging the edge, the tilt of her head inquisitive and alert like that of a fox. Her back had a sway to it that was pushing her chest out, her legs dangled freely in the air, feet free of shoes, and her straight skirt was riding up above her knees, showing a few inches of pale, silky thigh–

He didn't know he was going to before he was standing there, close enough that her knees grazed his thighs, and looked down in her grinning face. "Thought that was funny, did you?" he asked gruffly.

"Yes. You've tentatively been moved to 'Rubbish; Decent Entertainment Value'," Pansy said, wearing the snottiest smirk imaginable.

Seamus placed his hands on the edge of the table, outside of hers, and leaned down over her. She had freckles on her nose that he'd not noticed before, and she was working those damned pigtails much the same way a striptease dancer would work a schoolgirl uniform – complete and utter _tease_. His mouth was twitching towards a smile despite his best intentions to keep a poker face. "So certain I'm rubbish, then?"

"Based on close to a decade's empirical observations, absolutely. Of course, that doesn't mean that I can't be swayed by hard evidence."

Seamus raised an eyebrow. "And how hard would this evidence need to be?"

"Pretty fucking hard, Finnigan." She didn't so much as blink, although her cheeks seemed pinker than a minute earlier, and her voice had taken on a breathless edge as he inclined his head towards her.

His hands inched closer to hers on the edge of the table, his thumbs grazing her knuckles that were tensely displayed. That discovery gave his small smile a cocky edge. "And why would I give a damn if ye think I'm rubbish, eh?"

"I assure you I have no clue why; you're the one who won't let the subject drop."

"On the other hand, you're the one who threw down that gauntlet in the first place." He moved one hand, let his fingertips gently drift over the back of her hand and then onto her bare knee, caressing the soft skin over the hard, curving jut of bone. "Wonder what that could mean."

Pansy's breath had stopped for two seconds when he had first touched her knee, but she laughed with unbowed defiance. "You're seeing gauntlets in the bright light of day, Finnigan. Or, well, in the artificial light of midnight, but still. Clearly it's a medical condition. I'm sure we have a book where you can look it up." Her voice trailed off and rose a bit as his face came closer. Seamus was grinning, thoroughly enjoying both her provocations and her reaction to him rising to the challenge.

"You. Talk. Too. Much." Slanting his head, he gently brushed his lips over hers. Pansy's lips were soft, and as she parted them, her breath rushed into his mouth, tasting sweet and cool like peppermint tea. Seamus raised a hand to cup her chin and deepened the kiss. He saw, half-lidded, that her eyes had fallen closed, so he shut his own and felt a slim arm curl about his neck, securing him closer. The tip of her tongue touched his, and with a low groan, he moved closer in between her thighs, slid a hand around her hip to the small of her back and drew her up firmly to his front.

She gave a small whimper and wiggled closer. And Seamus found that it was a very heady thing to have Pansy Parkinson whimpering and wiggling against him, her thighs parting to allow her to rub up against his quickly filling erection. He suckled her tongue and leaned over her enough to force her to arch her back and scramble for purchase, his free hand coming around to slide under her jumper and caress her smooth, soft stomach in slow circles of his fingertips.

"This okay?" he asked gruffly as they broke the kiss to come up for air.

Even in this position, flushed and short of breath, she managed to roll her eyes. "No, brainiac, as you can see I'm putting up one hell of a fight."

Seamus laughed against her neck as he left small nips down to her collarbone. "Nettles and poison ivy. Would it kill ye to be co-operative for once?"

"Finnigan, honestly, if this isn't co-operative enough for you..." she started indignantly, but he stopped her with another kiss, only breaking it to tug her jumper over her head, which revealed a soft white bra hugging a pair of coyly pert little breasts. Pansy shook out her hair, messed-up pigtails dancing on her shoulders. Seamus grinned and tugged at one of them.

"What are you, a first-year?" she grumbled.

He ground his hard prick blatantly against her crotch while he trailed his hand down to stroke a nipple softly back and forth through the bra. "What do ye think?" he murmured.

"I think you're ... so full of it, Finnigan–" She wet her lips and lowered her hands to his flies, starting to work on the buttons of his jeans, and Seamus groaned, feeling light fingers dancing over the taut line of his erection.

"That's nice," he got out, a little light-headed. "See, you _can_ be nice if you want to."

He studied her face while she pushed down his boxers and jeans on his hips and freed his erection. She was biting her lip in concentration sliding her hand from tip to base and back, and that's all he saw because his eyes nearly rolled back when she ran her thumb over the head of his cock, smoothing out moisture leaking from the slit. "Fuck," he whispered. "Pansy..."

He moved a hand slowly up her thigh, kissing her again as he slipped his fingers under the leg elastic of her knickers, and she was slick wet warmth over his fingertips, moaning into his mouth and rolling her hips on his fingers while the motions of her hand faltered and lost rhythm on his prick.

He grabbed his wand, held it to her lower belly and cast a contraceptive charm, and threw the wand clattering on the table. Which, he realised, was too low for what he had in mind. Seamus roughly wrapped Pansy's legs around his waist and heard a very satisfying small gasp as he scooped her up, carrying her over to the window. He set her on the ledge, which, yes, was perfect, and tugged her knickers down in one quick movement. Kissing her earlobe, moaning over her ear, he slid his prick into the wet groove of her folds and thrust up in her in a long, sure stroke, making her cry out, oh God–

"Fuck," he whispered again. She was warm and tight and perfect around him and he opened heavy-lidded eyes to watch her. However, her expression gave him pause. "Too rough?" he asked, feeling a pinprick of guilt through the haze of arousal. He'd make it up to her if he had been.

"What do you think?" She was hissing, her eyes wide. Her body had tensed up, not in a good sort of way, it dawned on him with confused dismay. Her back was arching away from him and she was scooting up on the ledge on stiff arms much in the way of a cat trying to avoid a bath, and as he saw her expression veer between pain and absolute pissed-off affront, his stomach sank.

"Don't tell me... Hell, Pansy, no _way_ you're a virgin–" It was fucking hard to form coherent sentences with his blood flow pumping steadily to his dick, but he had enough brain capacity about him to realise from her incensed intake of breath that he'd said something Completely And Utterly Wrong.

"You thought I'm a slut, I get it."

He groaned. " _No_. I ... hell, I'll shut up, all right, I'll stop–" He started to pull out, even, the idea of which was _torture_ , but she dug her heels hard into his arse and yanked at his shirt, keeping him in place.

"You're not going anywhere," she snapped, and Seamus was starting to get pissy as well because it seemed he couldn't do anything right by her and it wasn't like he'd got fair warning or like he'd hurt her on purpose. He bit into his lower lip and hung his head onto her shoulder while his hips worked on their own accord, making friction on his cock, sliding slickly in and out of her, and he hoped to god it wasn't hurting her too badly and that she might start to get something out of this, too, because he sure as hell wasn't going to last long.

He slid his hand in front, combing his fingertips through her curls and finding her clit, and she jerked under him, her breath shuddering as she tried half-heartedly to smack his hand. Seamus batted her fingers away, because honestly, he had no patience for this. No way was he meekly letting her cast him as the most insensitive lover ever, just to prove the point to herself. He smoothed wetness over her clit and felt her tighten around him immediately, her eyelashes fluttering as her hand sank away to touch at his waist and she moaned. Slow firm circles of his finger-pads while he pistoned into her faster, his orgasm prickling like fire down his spine, into his balls, and he thrust deep inside her and held as he climaxed, his breath coming hard.

After some boneless seconds, getting some of his wind back, he felt her push at him and he immediately started moving his fingers on her clit again. He met her gaze and he could practically see her gnash her teeth. "Don't ... go out of your way," she said tersely.

"Sweetheart, this is _right_ in my way," he countered with a tight laugh and a shake of his head, uncaring if he riled her up any longer since there seemed to be no damn way to help it, moving his fingers faster as he heard her moan, feeling her getting tighter as she started to tremble, which elicited a few last twitches from his softening cock inside her. Her hands dug into his arms as she came with a soft, hiccupped curse against his shoulder, and he stroked her slowly throughout it, before sliding his hand away and putting his arms around her, panting into her hair.

Right. _That_ had gone well.

"Pansy," he started, his mind still fuzzy post-orgasm but aware something needed to be said to salvage the situation. Just ... what?

"Never mind." She shoved at his hips, making him slide out of her, and jumped down from the ledge. She reached for her knickers and stepped into them, yanking them up and tugging down her skirt before moving on to the table and putting on her jumper. Seamus stared at her dumbly, leaning against the window ledge, tucking his limp prick back in and trying to at least get his breath back to normal, before he strode over to her and put a tentative hand on her shoulder. She shook it off with a small jerk of her arm.

"Listen, I'm sorry, all right? It would have been different if I'd known, and I didn't mean what I said ... quite the way it may have come out, and I'll–"

She turned on him hands at her hips, eyes shooting daggers and tongue spitting fire. "Why don't you leave, Finnigan? You got your jollies, so why are you loitering?"

"My ... my _jollies_?" Seamus's voice had risen to an indignant pitch. "Parkinson, this has been about as pleasant as deflowerin' a cactus! You issued an engraved invitation and you failed to give me critical information, and you have the nerve to blame me for this!"

Her face hardened but there was a sheen in her eyes that made Seamus stop and wish he hadn't said quite so much (specifically not the cactus part), wondering if he'd gone too far. The answer was immediate. She kicked his shin as she passed him – which he should have foreseen, damn it; he'd already seen her do it twice in two days – but it was the Stinging Hex to his left buttock as he leaned down to clutch at his leg that felled him, hitting his chin on the edge of the table as he stumbled on all fours to the floor.

Behind him, the brief crack of Apparation told him that he was alone.

***

Hell! Bloody crotchety, contrary nutter of a woman! Seamus was still fuming as he Apparated into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge and whisking out a beer. He put the lip of the bottle cap against the edge of the counter top and slammed down with the fist of his hand. Tipping his head back he took a long pull, pressing the cold bottle against the bruise on his chin afterwards. He leaned back against the table but shot up straight when the edge dug into his sore bum. "Fuck," he ground out through clenched teeth.

Breathing hard, he wondered what to do next, and, lost for other options, went to wake Dean, because Dean needed to let Seamus tell him how women were crazy and unpredictable and downright dangerous, and to agree that nothing of it was Seamus's fault and drink beer with him until the world started to make sense.

In Dean's room, however, on the mattress that was one of the last things remaining there, Dean lay spooning with Katie under the covers, an arm slung around Katie's waist. They were fast asleep, and Seamus felt downright sullen that he'd made a racket and no one had heard.

He went to shake Dean awake – but paused, standing over the two of them. Now, Katie. Katiebell was a girl. And she seemed sane, or at least not frustratingly alien, most of the time. Wasn't it typical that Dean had all the luck to pick up a girl who actually acted like a normal person.

"Katie." Seamus squeezed her shoulder, whispering to her, so as not to wake up Dean. He got it now. He didn't need to speak to Dean. He needed to speak to someone who understood how girl brains worked, which wasn't Dean. Dean might have a girlfriend, but he was just flying by the seat of his pants where girl brains were concerned, same as every other bloke under the sun.

"Mmhm." An eye cracked open and she made a 'huh' face as he crooked a finger at her. "That's sweet of you, Seamus, but you're really not my type," she muttered. She did sit up though, carefully extricating herself from Dean's arm and leaving him sleeping on the mattress.

She padded into the kitchen after Seamus, and rubbed her eyes while he went straight for the fridge and took out a beer for her. He opened this one with his wand, though, quite aware that she'd inflict further injury on him if she saw him pull the stunt with the countertop. Katie might be mostly comprehensible, but she was still a girl.

"Okay." She took a pull of the beer and leaned against the fridge, rubbing one foot down the Dean's-pyjama-clad calf of her other leg. "What's up?"

"I need to know something. Hypothetically."

"Hypothetical questions in the middle of the night are my favourite thing." She grinned half-heartedly at him. "Shoot."

"So," Seamus said bravely, cutting straight to the chase. "Theoretically. If a man and a woman had sex, and the woman happened to turn out to be, well, er, a virgin–" Damn it, for some reason he couldn't get the word out without stuttering, and Katie laughed quietly into her beer, already staring in disbelief.

"You're telling me that you deflowered Pansy Parkinson? That's already too much information," she interjected with a grimace.

Seamus paused. All he'd told Dean and Katie was that Pansy worked at the library and that she'd helped him every day and that he was going to her tonight to do her a favour in turn ... oh. He guessed he'd talked of her some. He was, however, quite aware how Katie felt about Pansy, given Pansy's close association with Malfoy, and he shrugged stoically. "This is a purely hypothetical problem. Are you going to let me finish?"

"As long as there's beer..." She drank again, looking at him with dawning curiosity. "You look awful, Shay. What's going on?"

"If," Seamus pressed on, deciding to ignore concern expressed as insults, "the man perhaps wasn't as considerate as one might hope and then said something conceivably tactless, and things went downhill from there–" He frowned. Why was this sounding like his fault suddenly?

"Hey." Katie's eyes narrowed. "Stop it, you're making me feel bad for Parkinson. I'm not sure I can cope." Catching his gaze, she reached a hand over to his and squeezed his fingers for a moment. "Spit it out. If you want me to say something sensible, which I presume is the reason you tore me from the arms of my true love at the arse crack of dawn, you need to let me know particulars."

Seamus sighed, and then finished his beer in one long motion, his throat working until he set the bottle down. "I told her that it had been as unpleasant as deflowering a cactus," he admitted – and winced. Repeating the words out loud, they did sound insensitive. He proceeded to give Katie a few juicy details. And then he sat down, and groaned as he shifted to the right side of his bum, crossing his legs like a girl. "Stinging hex. Must have had some Slytherin devilry in it; it's not even started to wear off."

"Well, that cactus comment _was_ below the belt." Katie shook her head. "Sounds like she's got a temper on her though."

"Yes, I had noticed," Seamus said. 

"Takes one to know one," Katie pointed out.

He sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face and then back through his hair. "Yes, I ... I was a prick, wasn't I? I mean, afterwards. I couldn't really help the first part. Why the hell didn't she _say_ something?"

"Maybe she felt awkward bringing it up, or embarrassed," Katie suggested.

"But why did she blame me for not reading her mind?"

"Because maybe she wanted you to read her mind."

Seamus stared doubtfully at Katie, but she didn't seem to be joking.

"Do women really want that? Expect it?" That wasn't the least bit fair.

"Seamus, little Seamus." Katie raised her beer to him in ironic salute. "You're a dear boy, and you mean well, but you've still got some way to go."

"So you don't think that she necessarily ... despises me now," he concluded, a light-green tendril of hope creeping into his gloomy outlook.

"That actually matters to you, does it?" Katie sighed, and eyed him critically. "No, but ... Stinging hex, and that bruise on your chin ... and possible other damage. I say in your own best interest, give her at least some hours to simmer down." She set her beer aside on top of the fridge. "Wait here, boy-o. I'll get some bruise salve from my first-aid kit – although you'll have to apply it to your injured parts yourself, lest Dean wakes up and comes in here to find me rubbing your naked arse."

 

***

There was a glazed blue pot with a flowering cactus on the help desk. 

All day, visitors had commented on it with stunning predictability – how amazing it was that something so prickly could be so gorgeous. The spiky, hard leaves were topped with cascades of rose-tinged white blooms, lush and translucent, emitting a heady, sweet scent. Pansy answered the remarks by ignoring them, but nothing could stop the next visitor from commenting along the same vein.

"Who the hell sends a girl a cactus?" she muttered to herself, shaking her head and biting her lip as she turned the card and looked at it again.

_Dear Pansy–_

_So, you were a bit prickly. Then again, I reckon I was a bit of a prick, as well, so maybe we could say that those cancel each other out, and make a fresh start? I'm sorry things turned out like that last night, and I'd be glad for a chance to make amends._

_Yours,_

_Seamus._

Mr Chaffinch came up beside her. His attention, though, was drawn not to the cactus but to the crossword lying open next to the prickly perfection of the plant.

"Is that for your Irish friend?"

"He's not–" Pansy stopped herself short. "Yes. He forgot it here yesterday, and today's the deadline for owling in this week's crossword." She'd found the newspaper with the crossword this morning, when she'd gone into the attic room to tidy up after last night. She'd brought it downstairs with her, working to fill in the remaining three words in between other chores, and getting distracted by the cactus.

Yeah, so maybe she'd been a bit prickly. A _lot_ prickly. And that's what had made him be a prick, to tell the truth. Pansy couldn't even quite explain to herself why things had gone so awry the night before. Or maybe she could, to some extent. She'd expected it for years to be Draco and there hadn't ever seemed a point to even try it with someone else. That was the reason she'd still been a virgin, and Seamus's tactless slip of the tongue had touched a spot quite as sore as the stinging places inside her.

How could he have known that, though? Even as she'd Apparated into her own bedroom last night, Pansy had _known_ that she'd screwed up. She'd tried to go to sleep, had stubbornly tried to touch herself and think of Draco, the old and well-tried fantasy, but all her mind would turn to was a cheeky grin and those damnable smiling eyes.

"Acuity," Mr Chaffinch said to her, watching the crossword. "You've got it. I'll be recommending you to take over the reference desk when I retire, you know."

Pansy turned to him, seeing a twinkle under the thick, grizzly hair. "Thank you, Mr Chaffinch," she said with genuine warmth. Since the day last summer when she'd stood on the opposite side of this desk, inquiring with stubborn, if fraying hope about the advertised job vacancy, the eccentric old wizard had been nothing but fair and generous to her. "I do appreciate that."

"Yes, yes. Now take the rest of the evening off and take that crossword to your friend." He tapped a finger lightly at her temple. "Acuity, noun, Middle English acuite, from Old French, ultimately from Latin acutus, sharp. Sharpness, keenness, a quick and penetrating intelligence. Don't be stupid, Miss Parkinson."

She smiled at him, and tucked the newspaper under her arm. "Yes, Mr Chaffinch."

***

"Hang on," Seamus called out from inside the flat.

It took some time, while she heard him moving quickly about. Then the door handle moved, the door swung open, and Seamus stood in front of her, his hair standing up in short spikes from a shower. All he wore was a pair of blue jeans slung low on narrow hips.

Her lips had been parted on a greeting, but the words dried to dust in her mouth. Damn, Finnigan was fit. He'd never taken off his shirt the night before, but now she could see that his chest and shoulders were beautifully built, all slender, supple muscle; his stomach was almost tauntingly perfect, adorned with a dusting of hair trailing down from his chest to the waistband of the jeans. 

And from there on, memory supplied the rest.

With a hint of a smirk, he leaned on the door-frame with one arm, showing off dark blonde armpit hair and an intriguing interplay of biceps, triceps and Salazar knew what more '-ceps'. "See anything ye like, Parkinson?"

Her teeth made an audible smack from the force with which she closed her mouth. "All I see is an underdressed Irish lout without the manners to ask me inside."

Seamus chuckled and moved to the side, with a gallant flourish of his arm as he bowed lightly. "You'll forgive my appallin' lack of grace, m'lady, me bein' a poor peasant from the provinces."

"I'll try. It's not as though my expectations were high." Pansy stepped inside, barely resisting the temptation to smack his head as she passed him.

His grin was cheerful as he ushered her into the living-room. "In that case, I may surprise you yet." 

"I'm not holding my breath."

"No? So that wouldn't be the reason your face is red, would it?"

"That's enough." She turned on her heel, jabbing a finger in his chest. "I never blush, Finnigan." The heat in her face belied the message. His skin was warm and she felt the short, silky hairs under her fingertip and regretted the gesture at once, even more so when he glanced down to where she was touching him.

"I've got ye, love. You never do. So you doin' it for me would carry all manner of significance, aye?" Seamus's hand lay over hers, on his chest, and Pansy faltered, and knew that her temper wouldn't help her out of this one.

"Thanks for the cactus. I ... I brought ... your crossword," she stammered and held out the newspaper to him. "It's done. If you owl it tonight it will get there in time."

"Thanks, Pansy. I was going over there, soon as I'd changed. I'm glad you came here, instead." He was grinning at her much differently now, not teasing, just ... happy. She'd made him happy. 

Amazing.

"I'm sorry–" they started in unison, and then said, in unison, "It's all right." They smiled at each other in what Pansy felt surely must be an utterly daft way, so why didn't she care?

"I ... it was supposed to be someone else," she whispered. "But I don't care for him any longer, not that way. But that's why, I guess – why I was prickly."

"I wish you'd told me," he said earnestly. "I'd have tried to be more gentle, of course I would, if I had known."

She blushed again. She didn't even try to fight it, this time. "Yeah, well. I don't care about gentle, I'm not a bloody Hufflepuff," she muttered, studying her shoes.

She could still hear his grin in his voice. "I wouldn't dismiss gentle out of hand, Parkinson. I could be so gentle, it would make your head spin." He cleared his throat, then. "Listen. My flatmate is moving in with his girlfriend next week, and they're throwing a house-warming party. Would you like to go? I mean, with me? A date?"

Pansy stared at him. "I ... yes ... no ... Finnigan. Seamus."

"Finnigan, Seamus; I am he," he said, sounding nervous under the joke.

"This is ... you realise your friends are going to hate me? And my friends are going to hate you."

He frowned. "Never asked your friends out on a date, did I?"

"No, but ... and I'm not going to change, you know. I'm not _nice_. I've got a mean streak a mile wide and I rather enjoy it so, and I won't kiss arse to make your friends approve of me." She stared at him defiantly. Surely he must understand that it was an impossible idea.

"I don't want you to kiss arse," Seamus said, and he did sound like he meant it. There was something like realisation dawning on his face. "I think I like you because you don't."

"You..." Her heart was suddenly racing a mile a minute, and her palm was sweaty against his chest. "Say that again."

"I don't want you to–"

"The other part," she said impatiently.

"I ... oh." His smile widened, and he squeezed his hand around hers. "I like you."

Three little words, a declaration that made her go weak in the knees. Pansy could only stare at him, wide-eyed.

"I ... I like you too," she whispered. "And ... yes, yes, I'll go on a date with you."

Something came flying at them. It was slightly unpalatable even before she recognised what it was. A balled-up, dirty gym sock.

"Get a room," a girl's voice called out. Pansy peered beside Seamus as he turned and looked over his shoulder, and saw his friend from Hogwarts in the kitchen with a girl she vaguely recognised as Quidditch, Gryffindor, enemy. Enemy or not, the girl was laughing, though, as Seamus firmly locked the door on them. He put both arms around Pansy and she stood up on tiptoe as he kissed her. Slowly, thoroughly, taking his time. She was breathless when they let go.

"What do you want, Pansy?" he murmured, those eyes smiling at her again. Moss and grey sea and a pot of gold. Pansy laid her head back, feeling giddy as she clasped her arms around his neck.

"I want you to make my head spin," she declared.

***

So he grabbed a jacket and no shirt, and she Apparated them to a high-ceilinged, dusty attic room, where they conjured blankets to lay out on the floor and Seamus undressed her and kissed her and suckled her and licked her and fucked her slowly, slowly, until Pansy's head wasn't the only one spinning. The only ones that saw, were magpies and pigeons on the rooftops and one solitary library owl pecking at the window, which was promptly dispatched on a rogue crossword mission to _The Irish Wizarding Times_ , Dublin.

***

_Four weeks later._

"We did it!" Seamus came barging into the flat, brandishing a newspaper in a victorious fist. "I bloody, sodding, fucking won, Parkinson!"

"You're not serious." Her jaw dropped, as she stared at him, because what were the odds?

He smoothed the newspaper out, pointing out the listed winners. "All right, not the first prize," he admitted. "The fifth."

Pansy craned her neck to see. "And what is that?"

"A weekend's stay in a posh suite in the best wizarding hotel in Dublin. And two theatre tickets." He pointed it out to her, grinning widely. "My parents are overwhelmed. They're going to enjoy that so much. Me Mam had no idea I'd sent in the crosswords. She said a pot of gold couldn't have made her happier. Brilliant, aye?"

"Absolutely fucking amazing," she agreed, laughing as he put an arm around her waist and twirled her around the floor.

"How's _your_ Mam doing?" he asked when he stopped, kissing her forehead.

"Oh, she's still sulking. But Aunt Meg says she's doing better. She's been terrorising her into an existence of long bracing seaside walks and no Ogden's," Pansy said, dryly but not without a hint of glee. "I gave notice on the cottage just this morning."

He nodded, tilting his head as he searched her face. "You're all right with that, then."

"Bloody good riddance," she said with some feeling. It truly was. Things were better, so much better since she'd tricked her mother into taking a Portkey disguised as a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky to her sister in Southend-On-Sea. There wasn't even any guilt involved. This was taking care of her mother, much better than letting her work on becoming part of the sofa upholstery in the cottage that would never be the same as their old home. And Father would be out in less than four years. It could be worse.

Seamus flung himself down on the sofa, lounging invitingly. "So you'll be in need of a place to live, then," he said.

There was a note of significance in his tone that made Pansy stop, and look at him, hands on her hips. Her face heated. "Finnigan, that's ... absurd. It's ridiculous. It's only been a few weeks. It's–"

"It's going to make it easier for you to get into my pants," Seamus said, waggling his eyebrows. "If the idea of a whirlwind romance terrifies you, well, the practical approach is I need a flatmate, and I have a girl who needs a flat, why make things bloody complicated? Think about it."

"I'll think about it. And I'm not terrified," she said grudgingly, biting her lip on a smirk as she sauntered up to him and climbed up to straddle his lap. His girl. She didn't mind that in the least. But it really was moving very fast and even if things _had_ moved fast in pretty fantastic ways, she needed to give it some thought. "Millie and Theo are coming back from France. Maybe Millie would like to share a flat. Unless she and Theo are getting a place together."

"Bulstrode? Oh, no! I'll need to brush up on my self-defence technique." Seamus pretended to try to slither down the sofa in escape, grinning as she dug her knees in and pinned him.

"Millie's a sweetheart. Wouldn't hurt a fly." Pansy let a hint of something slightly sharkish widen her smirk. "And she's promised to tolerate you, for my sake, and Theo will tolerate you for Millie's sake." Much the same way Thomas and Quidditch-girl tolerated her, for Seamus's sake. They were going to end up with an honest-to-God circle of mutual friends, or at least reluctant associates, if this kept up.

She started unbuttoning his shirt. "As for easier for me to get into your pants, Finnigan? Patently ridiculous. You're the one who can't ever control yourself."

"You're the one who's right now undressing me," he pointed out, quite reasonably. 

"Details," Pansy waved him off breezily.

And as she leaned in to capture his lips for a kiss, Seamus Finnigan got a demonstration of what it looked like when _Slytherin_ eyes were smiling.

 

-end-


End file.
